


Argot

by nirejseki



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Gen, M/M, spoilers for 1.13 and 1.14
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-07
Updated: 2016-05-07
Packaged: 2018-06-06 23:29:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6774595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nirejseki/pseuds/nirejseki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After enough time together, a pair of people can develop an entire language made up exclusively of shared experiences, references to events that only they know, to places only they’ve been, to jokes they’ve shared so often it feels more like a memory. </p>
<p>(aka what's going on with Mick and Len, episodes 1.13 and 1.14)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Argot

After enough time together, a pair of people can develop an entire language made up exclusively of shared experiences, references to events that only they know, to places only they’ve been, to jokes they’ve shared so often it feels more like a memory. 

Spend even longer together, and the language becomes unnecessary entirely, replaced with a unity of thought and purpose, communication done in the tilt of a head or a particular stance, the ability to predict another’s actions while blindfolded in a dark room because you know every last knee-jerk response they might have to any given incident. 

After Kronos, Len and Mick spent some time edging around each other, uncomfortable in each other’s space for the first time in decades. Their mutual inability to read each other anymore was a source of private distress to each one: Len’s paranoia and control issues growing until he could not sleep at night, fleeing instead to Sara’s room to play cards with a fellow insomniac; Mick’s resort to the simpler pleasures of food and drink. 

It was Mick’s right, as the injured party, to be the first to invoke that shared language once more, when he was ready. Yet it is Len who does it first, impatient or dazed from the lack of sleep apparent in the bruises under his eyes that come from no one’s fist. That first time is almost accidental, unavoidable – a reference during a time-sensitive mission to an old job, a shorthand he doesn’t want to have to explain out in full, a need to lay out a play requiring simultaneous action without revealing to the target player his role on the field. 

_Chicago_ – twelve boxes of deep dish pizza because Mick couldn’t make up his mind as to which one he wanted to try first, a crappy old house down on the South Side that happened to sit empty, the wind whistling like a train through a tunnel and screaming against the window panes. Four jobs there over seven years, each with its own ups and downs: the gallery job, the bank job, the corporate job, the armed car job. More fistfights than they can count; the snug little bar where they met their fence and threatened to kill him for trying to welsh on full payment, with the shitty beer and surprisingly decent flavored vodka. The lemonade stand down the corner run by mercenary little girls that managed to play Len for a sucker 14 times in a row, much to Mick’s endless amusement. The basketball games they watched from the highest seats, swapping tall tales with the usher that had opened the back door for them. The pastry shop with the marshmallow frosting that nearly got them caught because they couldn’t stop visiting and the local precinct liked it just as much as they did. 

The little rat that tried to sell them out and still went on a job with them the next day, by which point Len had already spent the night whispering into Mick’s ear exactly how he was still going to be useful. Ability to work in the absence of trust is a prerequisite in their line of work, but neither of them was particularly sorry to see him get carted away.

Len’s eyes flicker to Mick after he speaks, tension and worry in every line, not knowing who was going to answer, Kronos or Mick. Mick grunted, unspoken relief welling in his belly at his recognition of the phrase, even as he agreed and moved to implement the plan at the same time. 

The tension bleeds out of Len even as he lifts his gun, twists out from the pillar to shoot. He’s not worried about the guards with their deadly laser blasts; he’s better, Mick’s better. Only question is how fast reinforcements show up – and he’s found that the response time of any given police unit, regular or army, is about the same everywhere you go. 

The relief follows Len inside where he perches on the console, pretending to study the blueprints of Savage’s bunker that he memorized on his first glance when instead he just stares at it with eyes dulled by exhaustion. 

Mick gets himself a snack and three cans of that weird energizer drink that tastes like beer, puts them down on the console not far behind Len and sets himself to single-minded eating. Pretends not to notice when Len instinctively lifts one for himself. Knows that the best way to make sure Len is fed and hydrated is to let him steal it. Spends a solid minute trying to gauge if Len’s stopped eating properly due to stress by measuring the breath of his hips.

Sara makes a snide comment about the plan not being to walk straight into Savage’s citadel.

Mick rolls his eyes at the Lord of the Rings reference Len wants to make without ever hearing it said aloud. 

They walk off together, side by side, silent until they’re perched in a few bushes outside the citadel, watching an officer yell at some hapless guards. 

“Plan?” Mick asks shortly. He’s sure Len’s got something in mind; Len’s tricks and schemes are legion.

Len doesn’t smile or smirk, just shrugs and gets up, walking straight up to the entrance where that _isn’t_ being yelled at, the guards there pretending to keep watch while actually keeping their eyes and ears firmly on the dressing-down their colleagues are getting. Mick follows warily. He doesn’t like it when Len doesn’t explain himself; Len’s grandiose speeches and meticulous plans are as much a part of the foundation of his world as gravity or thermodynamics. 

Len walks straight up to the guards, looking bored. “Undercover unit seventeen, here to see Savage,” he drawls. “Something went wrong; we need to keep radio silence until we can report to him in person.”

The guards look mystified, but one of them – glancing again over to where the officer is turning red with fury – uses his passkey to swipe them in. No one wants to risk pissing off the bosses – some things never change.

Once they’re inside the door, Mick hums, says, “Seventeen, huh?”

Seventeen, Mick’s favorite number since childhood because it was his birthday – seventeen jobs they did together in a single month when they hit seventeen years of knowing each other, setting a speed record for their spree, collapsing like crash-test dummies when it was all over and the police desperately bemused, it was so out of character for them. Seventeen cupcakes with Oreos on top that Len gets him for his birthday instead of a cake, ever year that he can. Seventeen shots of rainbow-colored hard liquor – the number it takes to get Len to crawl under the bar and go to sleep right in the middle of the endless celebrations of legalization. Mick had laughed and kept an eye on his dozing partner whose head was nestled in on a canvas bag filled with tens of thousands of crisp dollar bills they’d taken from the coffers of the hedge fund three doors down, and no one else in the bar the wiser. Seventeen was how old Mick had been when he’d first met Len. A number for reckless decisions, for brazening things out, for going freestyle. Mick’s number.

Len rolls his eyes at Mick, playing high and mighty when they both know that it’s Mick’s cue to take point on the next part of the job. Finding Savage’s girl is easy; she’s in the fighting rooms not far from their entrance point. 

Mick banters with the girl – definitely a girl, not a woman, even if she’s trying to look older with her hair pulled back tight and her shoulders pulled back tighter. She makes a move towards her weapon, but pauses at the sight of theirs. Plays it off like she’s tough.

Len very nearly cracks a grin when Mick blithely tells her the bracelet works with his outfit. Mick’s bizarre love/hate relationship with Project Runway is the stuff of legend, though Len is more inclined to think of a particular party that it takes a hell of a lot more than seventeen drinks for Mick to agree to discuss. (In Mick’s defense, Lisa was a very convincing twelve year old who was certain that her dreams of becoming a fashion stylist were doomed to failure if Mick didn’t help her out.) 

Mick can tell by the minute twitching of Len’s shoulders what he’s thinking about and he vows he’s going to get him for it later.

A moment later, all humor is gone. Savage’s girl can ID them on sight. 

That could be a problem.

Mick suggests sending Vandal Savage the girl’s fingers, smirking at the dismay on everyone else’s faces. Len’s face isn’t twisted up in distaste, but his fingers clench a little from where he’s pretending to examine his nails; torture isn’t something Mick subscribed to, or even joked about, before, and Len keeps forgetting they work on different scripts now. Mick gets overruled, as he expected, but he finds that the taste of the joke has gone sour in his mouth when Len volunteers to get the information instead.

Mick goes to help Kendra instead. Tries to give her a pep talk, but he was never much good at those as Mick, and Kronos had no need for such bullshit. It ends up coming out somewhere in between those two poles of his personality. He’s pretty sure that place is just labelled “Asshole”. 

Len spends a few hours with the girl; comes out of it hollow-eyed and quiet. Len might know all the right words to say about abusive fathers, he’s played this game many times before, torn out his heart and his secrets to earn someone’s trust, appealed to their empathy and their ego by casting his past self down at their feet for pity, but it doesn’t get easier or more palatable. Of course, it’s the fact that deep down there’s still a part of him that doesn’t believe the crap he spouts about monstrous fathers, that stupid little kid part that thinks that if only he can avoid screwing up this time his father won’t get angry, that makes him sell the shtick so well. 

Mick sees it and says nothing, knowing that until the wound’s less scraped open and raw there’s nothing to be said. He does change his stance a little, standing a little closer than he was before, because _he_ sees the half-infatuated look on the girl’s face, even if Len’s missed it. He has no idea what it is about Len that makes women want to fix him up, but he’s going to stamp that one out before Savage’s blood shows true and infatuation turns to obsession. Wouldn’t be the first woman that it’s happened with, either. 

Finding out that Savage has been captured and brought on board instead of executed where he lay helpless renders them both speechless, but the incredulous looks they share need no clarification. Sara shares that look with them, half horrified and half incensed, but she doesn’t catch the nuances – the _do you remember when we took pity on that fucker in Baltimore? The one who ended up turning us into the Feds, yeah, sure, I remember him_ and the _it could turn out to be like New Orleans again; fuck no I will bludgeon Savage to death with an unconscious Kendra strapped to that new super-mace of hers before I let New Orleans happen again_ and naturally the joint _I can’t believe we’re on a crew that’s screwing up the freaking Evil Overlord list_ – which flicker between them faster than light. 

The moment of understanding passes.

Mick digs up some scotch. It’s a heavier drink than he usually prefers – he doesn’t have much of a palate, opting for alcohol content rather than flavor, but he’s not really feeling the beer right now – and shares it with Sara and Len. Len’s sitting in a chair; if that isn’t a sign of discomfort, Mick doesn’t know what is. At least Len’s had time to catch a bit of shut eye. 

Kendra’s self-righteous appeal to their pity regarding Carter’s state falls flat. After weeks of her pushing and pulling on Haircut, hot and cold like a pop song, both Mick and Len have totally lost whatever little interest they might have had in her love life. 

Mick comments on the stability of the ship, knowledge drawn from Kronos but the disdainful intonation 100% Mick surveying a new car; Len smirks, a pleasure that quickly fades as he surveys the room. The risks of this voyage outweighed the benefits long ago, but he’s been sticking it out for some reason that gets harder to remember every day. 

They hang back, linger in the kitchen.

Again it’s Len who broaches the issue. Three times the initiator – Len’s starting to worry that Mick’s reciprocation means only a passive reception, not an equal link on the same wavelength, and he comforts himself with only with the knowledge that Mick was never the talker of the two of them. 

“You remember Alexa?” he asks. Before it might have been sarcastic, a tease; now there’s at least half of it that’s a real question. 

Mick stops stuffing his face with food that seems designed to drive a man into the torment of Tantalus – what’s the _point_ of food without the sugar and the calories? – and gives Len an incredulous look. Does he remember Alexa indeed. Now _that’s_ a stupid question.

“Yeah,” he replies, wondering what Len’s on about. Alexa’s not one of their common phrases. “From the security deposit job. What about it?”

“Just had a feeling about that one, a sixth sense things would end badly.” 

Mick nods, noticing for the first time that Len’s not eating again. Not that this food would help with the issue. “And they would have, if you hadn’t have pulled us out of there,” he says, remembering how much of a clusterfuck that whole thing had turned into. A whole goddamn sting operation, planned in secret for years, the lure set up perfectly and they’d come so very close to snapping up that perfect bait. Not the score of a lifetime, but fat and pretty enough to look real tempting while having enough obstacles to make it feel manageable. Obtainable. He’d bitched like a little girl when Len had pulled them out of that one, but it’d all been for the best in the end. Getting caught up in that sort of crap doesn’t get you a few years in the Heights; it gets you a few centuries once all your co-conspirator’s crimes are counted against you. Barring some massive prison break, Mick doesn’t expect to see any of the guys that stayed in that job again. “So what?”

Len looks at him, his whole body still stiff. He remembers that job primarily as a terrible feeling in his gut, churning and clawing up to his throat, the sheer terror that Mick wouldn’t listen to him and having no logical reason to give him to explain it. No speeches to give, no logic to reason it out with, just pure intuition, and he _hates_ making plays he can’t explain because if he can’t put it into words, how can he make others understand? Only Mick and Lisa ever understood him when his words stopped coming. “I’m getting the same feeling now.”

Mick stops where he stands, cookie still in his mouth. Sounds like Len’s thinking of pulling them out, dropping the whole hero thing and getting back to the way things were before. Mick’s not going to lie, that sounds pretty damn sweet. It’s everything he ever wanted before Kronos. So naturally, he’s a bit suspicious, but then, it could be that heroism has worn Len down like grist before its mill. People like Len and him, they’re not made to be heroes, not really. They don’t have the constitution to sacrifice themselves again and again and again, not for something as cold and abstract and unloving as the world. 

“Let’s see if Jax wants to come,” Len suggests. “Good driver, good fixer.”

Mick grins. “Good firepower. Even if it does mean we have to cart along Grey.”

“More of a chance of those two coming along than Sara,” Len says, not without regret. He _liked_ Sara. She played a mean hand of cards. 

Of course, turns out that the water-wheel of heroic self-sacrifice has already ground Jax under. He’s aging even as they watch, radiation he wasn’t warned about eating away at his bones even as he resigns himself to his fate, tells them not to take it so personally. 

Kronos is disgusted. Mick is horrified. Len takes it like a blow.

“This is what happens when Rip goes with Plan B,” he says remotely. In anyone else that would be a scream, and Mick can hear it loud and clear.

If everyone’s lost their mind, it’s time to get out. 

As they leave to confront Hunter, Len lingers for an extra second. “You deserve better,” he tells Jax. 

They walk out, side by side. It’s Mick’s turn, this time, to speak in that language all their own. “Alexa?” he asks.

Len’s smile is gruesome and has teeth. “You bet your ass.”

The confrontation with Hunter goes as expected. Hunter is clearly surprised to see them standing shoulder to shoulder again; Mick wonders uneasily about how much of their fight had been deliberately manufactured in order to lessen their chances of causing trouble. 

Len turns away from Hunter’s request, for the hundredth time, for more faith. He feels entirely the fool: some patterns you just can’t help falling into, it seems, and maybe it was clarifying the situation to Cassandra in 2166 that shoved the truth of this pattern into his face. Someone purporting to be an authority figure, luring you in with promises that they believe in you, then giving back lies, orders, screw-ups and endless, endless demands that if you just give them one more chance, it’ll be better this time. 

He really should have known better. 

They both get pissed off, moving in tandem to flank Stein when it turns out he sent out the jump ship without them. Turns out he reprogrammed it in an attempt to save Jax’s life; no telling what it’d do to people who weren’t affected. They get less angry.

They fight and they fall together.

In the middle of battle, Len yells something about ATMs. Mick smirks, remembering that time when Len had gone off every day, nine to five, popped open the front of the ATM with a screwdriver and sat there, apologizing to the passerby and explaining that no, the ATM still works, it’s just under repair, no, it’s no problem, I’ll enter your PIN number for you, here’s your money, thank you and have a nice day ma’am. That’d been a surprisingly good con, between Len’s photographic memory and his patience – they were able to use Len’s little blue book of credit card numbers and associated PINs for literally years afterwards. When Savage is captured again, Mick nudges Len with his elbow.

“You write those quips down ahead of time?” he asks with a smirk.

Len flips him off with an answering smirk and goes to play cards with Sara. He might not need the insomnia cure anymore, but she’s starting to think she can beat him reliably; showing her otherwise is a matter of honor (and cash). 

They don’t get captured together.

Back in the Time Masters’ custody, Kronos smiles, but Mick waits. 

He’s got someone who speaks his language on his side.


End file.
